好相處纔是職場成功的關鍵
For all the jobs that machines can now do — whether performing surgery, driving cars or serving food — they still lack one distinctly human trait. They have no social skills.
儘管機器現在可以從事各種工作，如手術、駕車、上菜，但無疑它們還缺少一個獨特的人類特徵，那就是社交技巧。
Yet skills like cooperation, empathy and flexibility have become increasingly vital in modern-day work. Occupations that require strong social skills have grown much more than others since 1980, according to new research. And the only occupations that have shown consistent wage growth since 2000 require both cognitive and social skills.
然而，合作、同理心和靈活性等能力，在現代工作環境裏已變得越來越重要。新的研究顯示，1980年以來，需要很強社交能力的職位大幅增加，遠遠超出了其他職位。而且自2000年來，僅有的一些工資有持續增長的職業種類，都要求良好的認知和社交能力。
The findings help explain a mystery that has been puzzling economists: the slowdown in the growth even of high-skill jobs. The jobs hit hardest seem to be those that don’t require social skills, throughout the wage spectrum.
這些研究結果有助於讓經濟學家揭開一個一直讓他們很困惑的謎題：爲什麼儘管是高技能職位，也會有工資增長緩慢的情況。從各個工資水平來看，工資最難增長的職業都是不需要社交能力的。
“As I’m speaking with you, I need to think about what’s going on in your head — ‘Is she bored? Am I giving her too much information?’ — and I have to adjust my behavior all the time,” said David Deming, associate professor of education and economics at Harvard University and author of a new study. “That’s a really hard thing to program, so it’s growing as a share of jobs.”
“我們對話時，我要想着你頭腦裏是怎麼想的──‘她是覺得無聊嗎？我說的信息太多了嗎？’──所以我還要隨時調整自己的行爲，”哈佛大學教育和經濟學副教授、一項新研究的作者戴維·戴明(David Deming)說。“這真的很難通過編程辦到，所以社交技巧在工作中越來越重要了。”
Some economists and technologists see this trend as cause for optimism: Even as technology eliminates some jobs, it generally creates others. Yet to prepare students for the change in the way we work, the skills that schools teach may need to change. Social skills are rarely emphasized in traditional education.
一些經濟學家和科技專家以樂觀的態度看待這個趨勢：儘管科技會淘汰某些職位，但一般還會創造其他的。爲了讓學生對現在的工作情況做好準備，學校所教的技能也應該改變。傳統教育模式很少會注重社交技巧。
“Machines are automating a whole bunch of these things, so having the softer skills, knowing the human touch and how to complement technology, is critical, and our education system is not set up for that,” said Michael Horn, co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute, where he studies education.
“機器正把很多硬技巧自動化，所以具有較軟性的技巧，懂得與人交流，懂得怎樣爲科技提供補充是非常重要的，我們的教育系統沒有爲這一點做準備，”克萊頓克里斯滕森研究所(Clayton Christensen Institute)聯合創始人邁克爾·霍恩(Michael Horn)說。霍恩在該研究所開展教育學研究。
Preschool classrooms, Mr. Deming said, look a lot like the modern work world. Children move from art projects to science experiments to the playground in small groups, and their most important skills are sharing and negotiating with others. But that soon ends, replaced by lecture-style teaching of hard skills, with less peer interaction.
戴明說，幼兒園的教室跟現代工作環境很像。孩子們組成小羣體，參加藝術項目、科學實驗，再到操場裏玩耍，此時最重要的技巧就是與人分享和協商。可這一切很快就結束了，取而代之的是講授式的教育：教授硬技巧，但朋輩互動的機會減少了。
Work, meanwhile, has become more like preschool.
同時，工作變得更像幼兒園了。
Jobs that require both socializing and thinking, especially mathematically, have fared best in employment and pay, Mr. Deming found. They include those held by doctors and engineers. The jobs that require social skills but not math skills have also grown; lawyers and child-care workers are an example. The jobs that have been rapidly disappearing are those that require neither social nor math skills, like manual labor.
戴明發現，同時需要社交和思考能力（特別是數學思考）的職業，在工作崗位和工資方面的處境是最好的。這些職業包括醫生和工程師。需要社交能力而不需要數學能力的職業，數量也有增加，如律師和兒童護理工作者。社交和數學能力都不需要的職業則正在迅速消失，如體力勞動者。
Despite the emphasis on teaching computer science, learning math and science is not enough. Jobs that involve those skills but not social skills, like those held by bookkeepers, bank tellers and certain types of engineers, have performed worst in employment growth in recent years for all but the highest-paying jobs. In the tech industry, for instance, it’s the jobs that combine technical and interpersonal skills that are booming, like being a computer scientist working on a group project.
儘管如今強調計算機科學的教育，但只學數學和科學是不夠的。涉及這些技能但不涉及社交技巧的工作，像會計、銀行櫃員和某些類別的工程師，近年來的就業增長是最低的，這些領域中薪酬最高的崗位除外。舉例來說，在科技產業裏，技術和社交技能相結合的工作崗位數量激增，如在小組項目裏工作的計算機科學家。
“If it’s just technical skill, there’s a reasonable chance it can be automated, and if it’s just being empathetic or flexible, there’s an infinite supply of people, so a job won’t be well paid,” said David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It’s the interaction of both that is virtuous.”
“如果只是技術性技能，就有理由認爲它可能會被自動化。而如果只要求有同理心和靈活性，社會也有無限的人力供應，所以這種工作的工資也不會高，”麻省理工學院(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)經濟學家戴維·奧托爾(David Autor)說。“只有結合兩者的職業才最好。”
Mr. Deming’s conclusions are supported by previous research, including that of Mr. Autor. Mr. Autor has written that traditional middle-skill jobs, like clerical or factory work, have been hollowed out by technology. The new middle-skill jobs combine technical and interpersonal expertise, like physical therapy or general contracting.
戴明之前的研究也支持了他的結論，包括奧托爾撰寫的論文。奧托爾曾寫道，文書和工廠工作等傳統的中等技能崗位，已被科技淘汰。新的中等技能工作結合了技術和人際專長，像物理治療和項目承包。
James Heckman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, did groundbreaking work concluding that noncognitive skills like character, dependability and perseverance are as important as cognitive achievement. They can be taught, he said, yet American schools don’t necessarily do so.
諾貝爾獎得主、經濟學家詹姆斯·赫克曼(James Heckman)開展了突破性的研究，得出了性格、可靠性和毅力等非認知技能，與認知技能同樣重要的結論。他說，非認知技能都是可以透過教育習得的，但美國的學校卻未必會教授。
These conclusions have been put into practice outside academia. Google researchers, for example, studied the company’s employees to determine what made the best manager. They assumed it would be technical expertise. Instead, it was people who made time for one-on-one meetings, helped employees work through problems and took an interest in their lives.
在學術界以外的地方，這些研究成果已經付諸實踐。例如，谷歌的研究人員爲了找出造就優秀管理者的因素，對該公司的員工進行了研究。他們以爲該因素是技術性的專業知識。然而研究發現，抽空與人單獨會面、幫助員工解決問題、對他們的生活感興趣的那些人，纔是優秀的管理者。
Mr. Deming’s study quantifies these types of skills. Using data about the tasks and abilities that occupations require from a Department of Labor survey called O*NET, he measured the economic return of social skills, after controlling for factors like cognitive skill, years of education and occupation.
戴明的研究量化了這些類型的技能。他從勞工部名爲O*NET的一項調查中，取得了關於就業崗位職責和所需能力的數據。在控制認知技能、學歷和職業等因素後，他計算了社交技巧所帶來的經濟回報。
The extent to which jobs required social skills grew 24 percent between 1980 and 2012, he found, while jobs requiring repetitive tasks, like garbage collecting, and analytical tasks that don’t necessarily involve teamwork, like engineering, declined.
他發現，在1980年至2012年間，要求社交技巧的工作增多了24%。與此同時，重複性的工作崗位，如垃圾收集，以及涉及分析但不一定需要團隊合作能力的工作，如工程師卻減少了。
Mr. Deming explains it in terms of the economic notion of comparative advantage.
戴明以經濟學中的比較優勢概念，解釋了這種現象。
Say two workers are publishing a research paper. If one excels at data analysis and the other at writing, they would be more productive and create a better product if they collaborated. But if they lack interpersonal skills, the cost of working together might be too high to make the partnership productive.
假設兩名員工要發佈一份研究報告。如果一個擅長數據分析，另一個擅長寫作，他們合作便能更有效率，產生的報告亦會較佳。但是，如果他們缺乏人際交往技巧，便可能要付出很高的成本，才能令兩人的合作具有成效。
Women seem to have taken particular advantage of the demand for social skills. The decline in routine jobs has hit women harder than men. Yet women have more successfully transitioned into collaborative jobs like managers, doctors and professors.
面對社交技巧的需求，女性似乎擁有獨特的優勢。重複性工作的減少對女性的衝擊比男性更重。但是，過渡到如經理、醫生、教授等合作性工作方面，卻是女性更成功。
That might be because, starting in infancy, females traditionally excel at things like social perceptiveness, emotional intelligence and working with others, Mr. Deming and other researchers say.
戴明和其他研究人員說，這可能是因爲從嬰兒期開始，傳統上女性便擁有更強的社交洞察力、更高的情商，也更擅於與他人合作。
These conclusions do not mean traditional education has become unnecessary, researchers say — in fact, traditional school subjects are probably more necessary than ever to compete in the labor market. But some schools are experimenting with how to add social skills to the curriculum.
研究人員說，這些結論並不代表傳統教育已經多餘的，相反，因爲需要在就業市場競爭，傳統的學校科目可能會變得前所未有地必要。雖然如此，有些學校正試驗把社交技巧加入課程範圍內。
At many business and medical schools, students are assigned to small groups to complete their work. So-called flipped classrooms assign video lectures before class and reserve class for discussion or group work. The idea is that traditional lectures involve too little interaction and can be done just as well online.
在許多商學院和醫學院中，學生會分成小組完成工作。所謂的“顛倒課堂”則會在上課前把講課視頻發給學生，留出上課時間開展小組合作或討論。傳統課堂太少互動，透過網絡也可以辦到，因此便有了這個構思。
The Minerva Schools in San Francisco, a start-up college, takes that approach. The idea is to transmit facts outside of class, said its dean, Stephen Kosslyn, and use class to teach effective communication and interaction. “It involves creativity, judgment, all that stuff that is hard for a machine to be programmed to do,” he said.
舊金山一所剛開辦的大學密涅瓦學校(Minerva Schools)也採取了這個做法。院長斯蒂芬·科斯林(Stephen Kosslyn)說，其構思是希望在課堂以外的地方傳遞事實性的知識，利用班級教導學生有效的溝通和人際交往。“它涉及創造力、判斷力和其他東西。這些東西不是給機器編了程序就能做到的，”他說。
Another way to teach these skills is through group activities like sports, band or drama, said Deborah Slaner Larkin, chief executive of the Women’s Sports Foundation. Students learn important workplace skills, she said: trusting one another, bringing out one another’s strengths and being coachable.
女子體育基金會(Women’s Sports Foundation)首席執行官黛博拉·斯蕾娜·拉金(Deborah Slaner Larkin)說，另一個教導學生這些技能的方法是透過團體活動，如運動、樂隊或戲劇。她說，學生能學到重要的職場技能：彼此信任、激發彼此的長處，可以接受指導。
Someday, nearly all work could be automated, leaving humans to revel in never-ending leisure time. But in the meantime, this research argues, students should be prepared for the actual world of work. Maybe high schools and colleges should evaluate students the way preschools do — whether they “play well with others.”
總有一天，差不多所有工作都可以自動化完成，人類將享有無窮無盡的閒暇時間。但是目前，這份研究的論點是，學生應該爲現實的職場做好準備。或許，高中和大學應該用幼兒園的標準來評估學生——那就是他們能否和別人“玩到一起”。
